Happy New Year!

Here it is February and finally getting around to updating our blog. Things move quickly around here :)
The Annual Holiday party was fantastic.....the year is starting out with promising projects and improvements at many sites. Of course we want to thank our wonderful staff, participants and the Board of Directors for all the hard work that goes into making Peninsula Services such a successful agency.
Recently I wrote a brief history.....how we started and have changed through the years. I thought I'd put an excerpt here for those interested.
Way back in 1971 a group of parents and advocates saw a need and founded Southwood, a voluntary residential program for adults over 18 with a variety of needs….victims of domestic violence, alcoholism, persons with developmental disabilities… anyone who felt they were unable to operate successfully in society. This was located behind the Olympic Center, where the original Harrison Hospital had been and where the Francis Haddon Morgan Center is now.
By 1978 the agency was known as Peninsula Lodge and had expanded the scope from living skills to providing psychiatric services in a variety of programs. Ethel DeClements, the Executive Director at the time, described it as a “half-way house, a stepping stone between the type of life that goes on in an institution and the day-to-day living in society”. There was still the residential care facility for clients as an alternative to hospitalization or to help transition from State-run hospitals to the community. Another part of the company was a Sheltered Workshop known as PenLCo and The People’s Janitorial Service, accredited by Washington State and CARF. The workshop taught office skills, janitorial and lawn maintenance. There was a Day Treatment program providing educational and recreational activities, group therapy and individual counseling to about 70 people daily. Then there was the Developmental Disability Center, providing daily living skills and pre-vocational training to persons with autism, epilepsy, cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, with the goal to transition to a sheltered workshop environment. Around 1978 the agency moved to Werner Rd. and by 1985, PenLCo, led by Director Chuck Paeth, opened a print shop in Auto Center Way, and had obtained contracts for Commissary shelf stocking, additional grounds maintenance jobs, repairing pallets and tools used in shipyard welding and making microfilm records for an aircraft company. Jill Robinson joined the agency as Executive Director in 1987. In 1992 the name was changed to Peninsula Services and along the way the Mental Health Division was acquired by KMH. The focus was then placed on Vocational Training with offices located at times on Wheaton Way, Sylvan Way and Pacific through the years...now at Werner Rd. Servmart took flight in1997. In 1998 Spun to Gold (aka Thrift, Gift and Garden) a consignment gift store was begun on Bay Street in Port Orchard, then moved to Bremerton and became The Gift Garden. There have been many other changes, many new faces, new ventures like E-Z Earth and All Shred and much progress. The success of Peninsula Services is in its flexibility to change with the growing needs of the community and its dedication to provide effective and successful treatment to its many clients…..and that is one thing that will never change!